City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
--

Neumann University’s men’s basketball team had never been to an NCAA Tournament.

Jim Rullo was aware of that when he took the head coaching job there in 2013, leaving after seven successful seasons at Malvern Prep for the opportunity to run his own college program.

Since the Knights’ men’s basketball team began play in 1982-83, just two years after the school first began admitting male undergraduates for the first time, the best it had done was an NAIA district appearance in 1993 and several appearances in its league championship game, but no further.

That didn’t matter to Rullo, who took a Malvern squad that hadn’t won back-to-back Inter-Ac titles in decades and accomplished the feat in six years. And it shouldn’t matter, not to a guy who walked on at Drexel and ended up helping the program to the NCAA Tournament in 1996.

It only took him two years to make history at Neumann.

“When you look at the game of basketball and you look at the ability to do special things, it’s not necessarily the individuals that are the most athletic or the most gifted that are necessarily the best teams,” Rullo said. “I think being able to try to establish a tradition and something for the school to be proud of was something that we were up for the task in and try to accomplish and that was our main goal.”

The Knights’ road to March Madness last March was improbable if only because of who stood in their way. The Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC) had been dominated of late by Cabrini, winners of five straight CSAC champions between 2010-14.

Led by national Player of the Year Aaron Walton-Moss, a Camden native who became the most dominant player in Division III hoops, Cabrini knocked off Neumann in the 2014 CSAC title game, its third straight win head-to-head since Rullo took over.

That string had reached five straight entering the 2015 championship, but it was Neumann who emerged with a 93-92 win in overtime, ending the Cavaliers’ run of dominance and proving Rullo right.

Two years after posting a sub-.500 record, the Knights were dancing.

“Honestly, I expected it to happen this quickly,” said junior guard DeShawn Lowman, the team’s leading scorer (14.0 ppg). “The way (Rullo) coaches and the different players he all brought together, he brought together a unit that was basically a family. At the end of the day, all of the players, I call them my brothers.”

Rullo initially built his roster unconventionally, exploring a few different avenues to get talent in the door right away.

James Butler, a 2011 Vaux grad, was discovered by Rullo at a summer workout at a rec gym in the city. In 2013. As a sophomore this past season, he averaged 13.2 ppg and 7.6 rpg, coming second on the team in both categories.

Another such find was Lowman, a Concord (Del.) grad who spent his freshman year at Saint Joseph’s, where he unsuccessfully tried to walk onto the team in 2012. While working out at his local YMCA, the following summer he was approached by Rullo, who pitched him on what he was trying to build at a job he’d only just been hired for.

“He was a straightforward guy from the beginning, he was telling me that he was trying to change Neumann, was preaching to me that we could turn the team around,” Lowman recalled. “Neumann hadn’t won a championship since they’ve had a men’s basketball team. He felt that he could bring the team together and me being a part of the team could help them get to that CSAC championship.”

Lowman and Butler are just two returning stars from last year’s Knights; also back is 6-4 sophomore forward Andrew Moye (11.3 ppg, 8.0 rpg), 6-2 senior guard Denzel Yard (9.3 ppg, 4.1 rpg) and 5-10 senior guard Kevin Green (11.4 ppg), who hit the game-tying bucket against Cabrini with three seconds left in overtime, which Rullo called “a shot for the ages.”

This year, they’re also expecting significant contributions from 6-4 sophomore Pierre Charles, a Haverford HS grad, and freshman Jordan Collins, a 6-3 wing out of Springfield (Delco).

Also joining the fray is junior shooting guard Billy Cassidy, a transfer from Chestnut Hill College who averaged 11.6 ppg as a sophomore and made 39.2 percent from 3-point range.

Despite having five players with double-digit starts under under their belts, Rullo isn’t saying it’s NCAA Tournament-or-bust this year.

“I think we’re keeping it realistic,” Rullo said. “We understand that Cabrini has a lot of pretty impressive young players, we know Gwynedd is extremely strong with a core group of seniors who have been around and played well together and are well-coached,we know Rosemont, we know Keystone is scary. We embrace the challenge, we understand that we’re a big game for our conference opponents, but we look at every game the same way on the flip side.”

Except now they’re the defending champions.

And as humble as Rullo is trying to be about it, there’s no denying the fact that making the NCAA Tournament is in some ways addicting for the young men who make it there -- a small taste is never enough.

“We’re not only looking at the CSAC championship but we’re looking to make a run in the tournament,” Lowman said. “Just making the NCAA Tournament isn’t good enough anymore, we’re not only try to compete with these teams but beat these teams. Want to crack the top 25, be a national team this year, get a first-round bye. We’re looking at bigger and better things, not just conference-wise, but on a national level.”

Thinking back to that program-changing win over Cabrini back in February, Rullo didn’t pinpoint one particular moment that stood out, but an emotion.

“Just the euphoria of these individuals,” he said. “they’re competitors, they’re great kids but to see them with such joy and emotion of crying and having that elation is something that you can’t put a price tag on it.

“People often ask me why did you get into coaching...that’s why,” Rullo continued. “It’s about the people that you get to meet, it’s about the experiences, it’s about the friendships. Those are the reasons why. And to see that up close, it’s pretty special.”